Our government, bless it, is fiddling the English language as well as the new stealth taxes (don’t mention lottery funds to me, please). Yesterday in parliament I came across (via the radio in our bathroom) no less than three unusual uses of common words:
The verb to “harden”
When government agencies adjust prison sentences, then this is called “hardening”. A man’s sentence was reported to have been “hardened” from fifteen years to seven and a half years.
The verb to “statement”
When a local authority assesses a child with special needs this is called “statementing” the child. If anyone tries to “statement” me, I’ll boff them.
“Geoff Hoon”
As in “You’re a right Geoff Hoon, you are!” – cockney rhyming slang of course for baboon.
Meanwhile that other word (unheard of in the English language a year ago and now on the front page of most newspapers most weeks) “Sudoku” comes to mind. I introduced the son and heir to sudoku on a train the other evening. Needless to say he grasped the concept within minutes and had completed the puzzle I was working on before I could blink. My frazzled brain keeps on trying to master the fundamentals and yesterday I proudly completed my first “tough” puzzle (four hours, twelve minutes). Today’s puzzle is “diabolical”. Oh heck!
Old fogey, less-than-totally-successful bookseller, husband, parent and grandparent holds forth on his own issues of the day.
About Me
- Rumbling Nappa
- Sometimes referred to as the Rumbling Nappa I occasionally return to blogging. This time it is to comment on the Languedoc marriage of my neice, Louise Ticehurst to Rich Astley.